Martin Erat #10 of the Nashville Predators passes the puck in front of Brad Stuart #23 and goalie Jimmy Howard #35 of the Detroit Red Wings in Game Two of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Bridgestone Arena on April 13, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee.Frederick Breedon
/ Getty Images

Kyle Quincey #27 of the Detroit Red Wings passes the puck past Martin Erat #10 of the Nashville Predators in Game Two of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Bridgestone Arena on April 13, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee.Frederick Breedon
/ Getty Images

Shea Weber #6 of the Nashville Predators and Todd Bertuzzi #44 of the Detroit Red Wings hold their positions in front of goalie Pekka Rinne #35 in Game Two of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Bridgestone Arena on April 13, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee.Frederick Breedon
/ Getty Images

Who’s Hot: Guess when a guy gets three goals and three assists as Claude Giroux did, he’s hot.

Who’s Not: Henrik Sedin has sent out an SOS for brother Daniel. He’s good, but he needs his twin, who’s out with a concussion, especially on the power play.

Marquee Matchups:

Sunday: Pittsburgh Penguins in Philadelphia against the Flyers down 2-0. Can they win a game 1-0, by scoring in the last minute, rather than taking a 3-0 first-period lead and blowing it?

Sunday: Vancouver Canucks in Los Angeles to face the Kings, down 2-0. Can Vancouver make something happen on their power play, which has been bad for weeks?

Time to move injury-prone Hall to centre?

If the Edmonton Oilers keep the No. 1 pick and load up at forward with Nail Yakupov joining Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, would they seriously think of moving Hall to centre?

I would.

Hall might be less susceptible to injures playing in the middle rather than his wild-colt style as he charges down the wing.

The only problem with taking Yakupov is that they’d still have to find a way to grab a high-end defenceman in a draft year that has so many talented blue-liners.

How do they get Edmonton Oil Kings’ Griffin Reinhart later?

If they’re taking Yakupov, they absolutely have to make a big play to sign either the University of Wisconsin’s Jason Schultz, or Florida Panthers unrestricted free-agent defenceman Jason Garrison on July 1. Both players are adept at moving the puck

“You can never have enough puck-movers,” said Edmonton Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini.

Realistically, the Oilers won’t trade the No. 1 pick unless they get a top 2 defenceman from another team or one that will grow it into a high-end NHLer.

”Do we have a top two (pairing)? Yes, on our team (Ladislav Smid and Jeff Petry? Ryan Whitney and Schultz?). But a top 2 for a championship team? No, we don’t,” said Tambellini.

The only way I’d see the Oilers dealing the first pick would be if the Nashville Predators were offering Shea Weber because they couldn’t sign him.

Sutter impressed with blue-liner Murray

Team Canada head coach Brent Sutter doesn’t think Everett Silvertips defenceman Ryan Murray will get past the third pick in the NHL entry draft in Pittsburgh in June.

Murray might even end up the No. 2 pick because the Columbus Blue Jackets like him. Certainly, the New York Islanders are taking a blue-liner, not a forward.

“Murray has tremendous hockey sense. He’s not an abrasive guy but he’s a great skater and very intelligent,” said Sutter, who knows all about the Western Hockey League as owner of the Red Deer Rebels owner.

Flames’ Giordano ‘the full package’

When Calgary Flames defenceman Jay Bouwmeester was named to Canada’s world championship squad and Mark Giordano wasn’t, most people scratched their heads.

However, Lowe made it clear he’d reached out to Giordano quickly, but was told he was banged up and couldn’t go.

Lowe’s Oilers may be a rival in the Battle of Alberta but he respects Gioradano a lot. He could easily be part of the blue-line mix for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Sometimes Giordano tries to do too much, but if you were to name the top five underrated NHLers, he’d be on the list. “

He’s the full package,” said Sutter. “He’s tough, he plays hard hockey. He shoots the puck. You can play him in any situation.

“He comes to play, as they say, every night.”

This ‘n’ that

Edmonton Oil Kings GM Bob Green says forward Kristians Pelss of Latvia reminds him of Detroit Red Wings centre Darren Helm as a junior. Green would know; he used to be the head scout for Helm’s Medicine Hat Tigers. Pelss has great speed and plays with an edge. Pelss was the 10th player they drafted in 2010 (181 overall) ... Columbus GM Scott Howson may have looked disappointed when the Jackets didn’t get first pick at last Tuesday’s NHL draft lottery. But with the Blue Jackets’ history of taking Russian-born players early in Round 1 (Nikolai Zherdev, Nikita Filatov), now he doesn’t have to worry about passing on Yakupov. He can take Murray or maybe Swedish forward Filip Forsberg. Or he could take Russian-born Alex Galchenyuk, who’s now an American citizen and Yakupov’s junior linemate. The Jackets, of course, are also looking for a No. goalie and will use a trade of forward Rick Nash, the No. 2 overall pick and the Los Angeles Kings’ pick (in the Jeff Carter deal) to get one ... It wouldn’t surprise me if the Oilers drafted Oil Kings forward Henrik Samuelsson’s in the second round. He has size at six-foot-two, 190 pounds, Samuelsson’s dad, Ulf, and Lowe are former Rangers teammates. He also has his dad’s work ethic, but not his mean streak ... The Anaheim Ducks won’t be re-signing Jason Blake and Niklas Hagman, who are unrestricted free agents, but they have youngster Kyle Palmeiri ready to take one of those spots ... Anaheim Ducks defenceman Francois Beauchemin would have been on Tema Canada. but he needed surgery for a torn labrum. He’s out months.

Couturier steal of a deal for Flyers these days

I remember the days leading up to the draft last June in Minnesota where scouts were talking of Sean Couturier’s free fall.

Here was a kid who was the No. 1 pick at the start of the 2010-11 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season, coming off an MVP season at age 17 — only Sidney Crosby had done that at that age.

Then, because Couturier developed mononucleosis and his stats didn’t improve, people started to hitch their wagons to other kids like Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Huberdeau and Mika Zibanejad.

Couturier ended up going eighth overall to the Flyers.

I remember Hockey Canada chief scout Kevin Prendergast saying that “defensively, he’s the best (high-end) player. Really good without the puck.”

Now, he’s only the second teenager (Toronto Maple Leafs’ Ted Kennedy in 1945) with a hat trick after he got three goals against the Penguins. He has four points at even-strength in he playoffs, going against Pittsburgh star Evgeni Malkin, who has zero and is minus-5 in the series.

Flyers forward Jaromir Jagr says Couturier reminds him of former Penguins teammate Ron Francis because of how well he plays away from the puck. If he turns out to be Francis, the Isles, Senators and Jets are going to be awfully sorry.

Brown member of exclusive playoffs club

Kings captain Dustin Brown joined an exclusive playoffs record club when he scored two short-handed goals against the Vancouver Canucks on Friday.

That group includes Wayne Gretzky, who accomplished the feat twice, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Bryan Trottier, Dave Keon, Rod Brind’Amour, Jeremy Roenick, Vincent Damphousse and John Madden, who struck twice in the same game. The group also includes Bobby Lalonde and Tom Fitzgerald, Ray Shero’s assistant in Pittsburgh.

The most short-handed goals in one series were scored by star Flyer Bill Barber against Minnesota in 1980, and Wayne Presley of the Blackhawks in a 1989 series against Detroit.

Messier has the most short-handed playoff goals in history with 14. Gretzky had 11, Kurri 10.

This ‘n’ that

If bang for the buck is a criteria, the Buffalo Sabres have empty pockets. They paid free agent Ville Leino, who has only looked good in Philadelphia and not in Detroit or Buffalo, $6 million for 25 points and Brad Boyes $4 million for 23 points. People yell all the time about Scott Gomez, but Leino? Six million? He’s a guy who should be paid $3 million, max ... Should we be surprised that Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock scratched Chris Stewart for Game 2 against the San Jose Sharks? Not one bit. This has been an ongoing situation with Stewart, who has the tools to be a 30-goal scorer, but he had a measly 15 this season. David Perron, coming back from a very bad concussion, had 19 goals in 57 games, while Stewart played 79. Fortunately, they lucked out getting Kevin Shattenkirk, along with Stewart, for Erik Johnson. Shattenkirk is their second-best defenceman after Alex Pietrangelo ... Noticeable by their absence in these playoffs are referees Don Vanmassenhoven, who’s 51 and has officiated 1,147 regular-season games and 101 playoff games, and Dave Jackson, 47, who has 1,194 league games and 66 playoff games on his resume. They didn’t get post-season work last year, either, usually a tip-off that their days as refs are winding down. Also missing from the playoffs is linesman Dan Schachte, who has worked 2,001 regular-season games and another 221 in the playoffs. He worked the 2002 Olympics, the 1991 Canada Cup and five Stanley Cup finals ... The Lightning, who have two first-round picks and possibly four seconds in June, will be all over Canucks goalie Cory Schneider before the June draft. It’s unlikely Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Dwayne Roloson, who turns 43 in October, will be back and backup Mathieu Garon has another year left on his deal with the Bolts ... Penguins’ Chris Kunitz will want to burn the game tape after the 8-5 loss to the Flyers. He was minus-5. Malkin was just a shade better at minus-4 ... Igor Kravchuk, the best Oilers defenceman in the mid-90s when they had a bad team, was in charge picking the NHL Russian players for their world squad and opted for Alexei Yemelin (Montreal Canadiens), Nikita Nikitin (Jackets), Sergei Varlamov (Colorado Avalanche) and Alex Burmistrov (Jets) in the first wave, before teams are eliminated in Round 1. Very good man, Kravchuk.

He Said It:

“Six points one playoff game. Beginning of the year, I called u little Mario. Now I can scratch out the little.”

Jagr, on Claude Giroux’s three goal and three assists against Lemieux’s Penguins Friday.

By the numbers:

10:48. The Flyers have only led the Penguins for that many minutes out of the 120 in the first two games, but led 2-0 in the series.

10: Ottawa players who had never played a playoff game until now. That’s almost half the team with jitters.

73: Jonas Hiller bounced back mightily from last year’s vertigo problems to play more games than any other goalie.

Matty’s Short Shifts:

*Some folks in Montreal are promoting a Linus Omark for Yannick Weber trade. Makes sense from an Oilers standpoint because Ralph Krueger, if he’s back as associate coach, would have had the offensive D-man on his Swiss national team and Krueger coaches the Oilers blue-liners. Not sure why the Habs would want another small forward, though. I don’t think the Oilers would get more than a fourth-round pick for Omark, otherwise. They drafted him as a fourth-rounder in 2007. I don’t have any trouble with Omark saying he wants a trade on twitter. He can read the tea leaves here. No room.

*If you were wondering if Claude Giroux was going to be on Canada’s Olympic team in 2014, question answered. Better question: How did this incredibly gifted forward, who finished third in NHL scoring this season, go 22nd in his draft year? That’s 13 picks behind James Sheppard (Minnesota) and nine back of Jiri Tlusty (Maple Leafs). Of course, Philadelphia got Mike Richards at 24th in 2003, Justin Williams at 28th in 2000 and Simon Gagne at 22 in 1998, so maybe we should just applaud their scouting acumen.

*In a perfect world, Calgary Flames GM Feaster, who became fast friends with Bob Hartley when they worked for the AHL’s Hershey Bears, might want to bring in his buddy in to coach the Flames. But it sounds like the head of the Zurich team won’t release Hartley, who won a Cup ring with Colorado as head coach, from his 2012-13 Swiss League contract. Zurich is in the Swiss finals against Bern. I don’t see the Flames job being attractive except to an AHL coach looking for a shot like Dallas Eakins (Toronto Marlies) or Calgary’s farm team coach Troy Ward. Heck, maybe Rob Daum, even if he has a four-year extension in Austria, should be getting on the blower to throw his name into the hat.

*I don’t suppose the Penguins want to hear this, but when the Flyers have jumped to 2-0 leads in their playoff series, they are a perfect 17-0 in their history.

*How many goals do you suppose Tampa Bay sniper Steve Stamkos would have scored if he hadn’t been playing the last while with a sore left shoulder? No structural damage in an MRI, but it’s the same shoulder he hurt in last spring’s playoffs, so hopefully he doesn’t get into labrum tear territory like so many NHLers. Stamkos has played 328 straight games, never missing any in his first four NHL seasons.

*The Blue Jackets have been in 12 draft lotteries which tells you how well they’ve played over 82 games — and they’ve never won. Not getting first pick, not even moving up four spots from, say, No. 8 to No. 4. Nada, zip. Little wonder they were bummed about the Oilers win on Tuesday night.

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